Even though I’d already ordered from Nordstrom at the start of June (dis), I placed another order at the end of June, mainly because I wanted a secondHair Care Sample Pack (dis) which happened to still be available (at the time). After this order though, I think I’m gonna’ cool it with Nordstrom (for a bit). It’s just too hot to be ordering stuff online.

Anyways, I got something from Alterna and two more somethings from Bumble and Bumble. Other than the Hair Care Sample Pack there was an Alterna Gift With Purchase and Bumble and Bumble Gift With Purchase which included deluxe samples from each brand! Yaaay!

I also got some more Bar Soaps and Candles to qualify for the Fragrance Sample Pack (dis). I was actually interested in purchasing Mojave Ghost from Byredo and Philosykos from Diptyque as Perfumes, but it was way too hot to risk (the heat might alter the contents and therefore the scent). So, I got them as Bar Soapsinstead. Plus, this way, I could “test” the scents first, rather than buying them as Perfumes and possibly ending up hating them.

The Makeup stuff was from Benefit and I only got them because I really, really had my heart set on the Benefit Gift With Purchase that came with a very, very cuteBenefit Clear Tote Bag and some samples. Also, it helped bump up the total of my order so I could qualify for the latest Sample Pack (dis).

Get a Free Gift when you spend $85 on Women’s Fragrance. Discover your next favorite scent with samples from Diptyque and Tom Ford and Yves Saint Laurent and more.

Towards the end of June, Nordstrom came out with x2 more Sample Packs. One, was a mix of Makeup and Skincare (dis), which wasn’t particularly exciting. The other, was this Fragrance Sample Pack, which was very enticing!

For starters, it came with a sample of Mugler Angel Eau Croisière which I was dying to sniff! The pack also included several flankers of well-loved gourmands, Prada Candy and CH Good Girl and V&R Flowerbomb and YSL Black Opium and YSL Mon Paris! I was pretty excited about the samples from Atelier Cologne and Diptyque and Replica and my belovedKilian as well! Also, most of these were new-new!

In hindsight though, I totally should’ve skipped the Fragrance Sample Pack (June) because it was mostly either floral-y florals (yuck) or overly sharp and citrus-y scents (namely Peach, ugh).

Seeing as how popular my previous Zara Perfume posts were (Cashmere Rose is almost always listed in the Top 10 Posts in the side-bar), I picked up a total of x19 Zara Fragrances for around KD 120 to review (but also because I’m kinda’ obsessed with fragrances now and also because I was hoping to find some “hidden gems”). For starters, just like their clothing, Zara regularly comes out with a lot of excellent duplicates or “dupes” of best-selling high-end and designer perfumes.

That said, keep in mind, as with most cheap-y fragrances with a high alcohol content, these do not last as long. As such, most of them were pretty inexpensive (the lowest ranging from KD 4/900 and the highest ranging to KD 10/900)! I’d also like to point out that although certain fragrances might still have the same name, Zara tends to reformulate them (completely switching up the scent) and change the packaging, from year to year. Lastly, these are just my “first impressions” and my opinion is subject to change (so please don’t be offended if you happen to love a certain scent and I don’t).

Nordstrom was having yet another promo and just like it says on the sticker, with every $135 Fragrance Purchase (which converts to around KD 40) you qualified for the pack of fragrance samples (as shown)! Most of them were tiny spray samples, but there were several adorable mini perfume bottles and even an actual candle! Not only that, but they were all either from designer or niche brands! A lot of them were relatively new fragrances too! Best of all, included was a sample of Delina by Parfums de Marly (which I’ve been dying to try)!!!!

This particular promo could not have come at a better time, especially since as I’ve already demonstrated (haulage here), I was more than willing to spend my money on samples. Funny how only a few months prior, I would’ve barely glanced at this promo, but now that I’m obsessed with perfumes, I was giddy with excitement, practically salivating, at the prospect of playing around with all those perfume samples!

I was at Sephora shopping for a birthday present for someone who was extremely difficult to shop for. While there, I hunted down a few of the Perfumes on my list that I’ve been dying to sniff (mostly Lancome). On a whim, I decided to check out some of the “private” and “exclusive” luxury fragrances (Tom Ford and Armani Prive and Maison Lancome and Geurlain and so on) and accidentally stumbled upon Kilian! I don’t know if an invisibility spell was cast on the display, but somehow I’ve never ever noticed it before! As per usual, there were no sales assistants designated to any of the displays and customers were just left to their own devices. I searched for Back to Black (because frag-heads on YouTube rave about it all the time) but couldn’t find it. I did however find my new favoritePerfume of life, but more on that towards the end of this post…

So my obsession with Perfumes was at its peak. However, I didn’t want to purchase them locally because they’d be more expensive and I wouldn’t receive anything else with them (as a gift with purchase or loyalty points or whatever else) no matter how extortionate the price was, and and I wouldn’t know if I was getting an older batch (potentially expired) and worst of all, I wouldn’t know if they were fake or not, but mostly I was anxious about purchasing locally because of this (Perfume Fail). If I bought them online, they’d be new, less expensive and more often than not, I’d receive a gift with purchase or samples or something. However, I wouldn’t be able to give them a sniff beforehand, and based on previous experience, I’m not really the luckiest when it comes to blind-buys.

Even though I’d love to, I couldn’t sign up for those monthly subscription boxes (such as Scentbird and the like) because the cost of shipping to Kuwait via Aramex, would add up to something ridiculous. In comes MyPerfumeSamples.com which was exactly what it sounded like! You pick out the scents that you wanted and the sizes that you preferred (with the pricing varying from scent to scent) and they’d ship them over. Up on the website, each scent had the fragrance notes and the year it was released and so on, listed next to it. I purchased a handful, in varied sizes.

Each sample came in a plastic sachet of it’s own, with the name of the scent printed on the actual sample (so handy!) and they were all packed together in a bubble-wrapped package within a package. Since looking at plain samples can get boring, I decided to add photos of the actual perfume bottles as well. Now on to the Perfumes (samples) that I’d ordered…